POLITICO: How Trump could ax CO2 Endangerment Finding climate rules: ‘The admin’s plan for unwinding U.S. climate policy may hinge on idea that climate change is bad — just not bad enough to justify the cost of curbing it’ – Avoids ‘arduous task of discrediting’ CO2 claims
Hmm. This is like copping a plea deal when you’re innocent!
Trump could ax climate rules –
– “The admin’s plan for unwinding U.S. climate policy may hinge on idea that climate change is bad — just not bad enough to justify the cost of curbing it.”https://t.co/ZAW3tqmHxG— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) April 28, 2025
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2025/04/28/trump-could-ax-climate-rules-by-changing-the-subject-00313137
By ARIANNA SKIBELL
The Trump administration’s plan for unwinding U.S. climate policy may hinge on the idea that climate change is bad — just not bad enough to justify the cost of curbing it.
This approach, analysts say, might allow President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency to neuter climate regulations for cars and power plants without undertaking the arduous task of discrediting the overwhelming evidence that greenhouse gases are driving up global temperatures, writes Jean Chemnick.
EPA’s decision on how exactly to unravel the federal government’s fight against global warming could be one of the most crucial pivot points of Trump’s second term — helping determine how much of the anti-climate crusade survives in court. And as Jean writes, “Hints about its strategy may have been hiding in plain sight.”
Administrator Lee Zeldin offered one clue in a recent press release describing his plan to challenge a 2009 action known as the endangerment finding, which states that carbon pollution endangers public health. The finding serves as the justification for most U.S. climate rules.
By emphasizing how much money it costs industry to curb atmospheric pollution, EPA could essentially use a little math magic to argue that the environmental benefits of climate rules are minimal. The agency may also seek to incorporate potential benefits from warmer temperatures.
Trump himself said as much last year when he described climate change as a chance to create more oceanfront property.
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The divide-and-conquer approach: Experts said EPA may also seek to weigh individual greenhouse gases separately as a way to soft-pedal their collective threat. Zeldin’s press release said it was additionally worthwhile to investigate whether efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change have muted the effects of future carbon pollution — basically offering industry a pollution hall pass.
Joe Goffman, who served as EPA air chief under Biden, called that “a massive exercise in changing the subject.”
“Everything cited in the March announcement goes to whether or not regulatory action is justifiable or preferable, not to whether or not these molecules operate in the atmosphere in a particular way,” he told Jean.